


heartbreak hotel

by oryx



Category: Danball Senki
Genre: M/M, Pre-Slash, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-16
Updated: 2013-10-16
Packaged: 2017-12-29 13:40:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1006091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oryx/pseuds/oryx
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's a wedding fast approaching. Kirito and Yuuya have a chat.</p>
            </blockquote>





	heartbreak hotel

**Author's Note:**

> i'll take "ships no one else cares about" for 200, alex

He pushes the door open with his shoulder, balancing a mug of coffee precariously in each hand.

 

“How’s it looking?” he asks, placing one of the mugs on the side table for his guest. He pulls up a chair and takes a seat, peering curiously over Kirito’s shoulder.

 

“Well I got it to boot up at the very least,” Kirito says. A cigarette hangs from his lips, smoke curling softly around him, and Yuuya bites back a wry smile. So it seems he’s traded in his old addiction to soft drinks for something even more life-threatening. (Expensive, too. Real cigarettes are difficult to find in Japan these days.) That plus his godawful posture and Yuuya is beginning to worry for his health.

 

“Running slow as shit, though,” he continues. He taps a command in and frowns at the lines of code that scroll across the screen. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone with this many image files on their hard drive. What is all this stuff? Porn?”

 

Startled, Yuuya nearly chokes on his coffee. “Goodness,” he coughs. “Do I really look like the type to have that much porn?”

 

“Hey, you never know,” Kirito mutters. “It’s always the ones you least expect.”

 

Yuuya laughs. “Well it’s nothing suspicious, I promise. Just pictures of things I find… appealing, I suppose? Places I’d like to visit, foods I’d like to try… Things like that. I guess I tend to get a bit carried away.”

 

“Yeah, I’ll say. All these random-ass programs you never use, too. This one was last run in… 2049? God damn. Exactly how old _is_ this piece of junk?” Kirito shakes his head in sheer amazement (or perhaps disbelief). “Alright, how about this: I’ll back up your hard drive and compress all your files down to a more manageable size. In return, you stop abusing your computer with all this unnecessary crap. Deal?”

 

“Deal,” Yuuya says with a smile. The room falls quiet, then, the only sound the faint tap of Kirito’s fingers against the keyboard and his occasional quiet “hmm.” Yuuya stares thoughtfully into his coffee. He doesn’t want to be a bother. He should probably just leave Kirito alone, and yet… It’s been months since he last saw the guy. It was rude of him, to call Kirito up out of the blue just to ask one of his silly technologically-impaired favors. At the very least he could make a conscious effort to strike up a conversation.

 

“Are you going to the wedding?” he asks, and immediately curses himself. Out of all the topics in the world, his mind just had to settle on that one.

 

“… Yeah, probably,” Kirito says. He doesn’t sound particularly thrilled about the idea. “It’s a little pathetic, going to a wedding without a date. And I’m not much for parties. But it’d be kind of a dick move if I didn’t show, so… Might as well.”

 

“We can be lonely bachelors together, then,” Yuuya laughs. It sounds forced even to his own ears. “I feel like such a poor excuse for a best man. No date, I still haven’t bought a suit, and I haven’t even started on my speech yet… As honored as I am, I’m beginning to wish Jin had picked someone else. Hiro would’ve been far better at this than me.”

 

Kirito takes a drag of his cigarette and is silent for a long moment. Finally, he says:

 

“You don’t have to pretend, y’know.”

 

“… Hmm?”

 

“You don’t have to pretend to be happy about the wedding.” Kirito’s gaze slides toward him, his eyes sharp and contemplative. “I’m not an idiot, Haibara. I see how you look at him. …How you’ve always looked at him. You’re not exactly hard to read.”

 

Yuuya takes a sharp breath. _Oh_ , he thinks. This conversation has officially taken an alarming turn for the worse. Apprehension wraps its way around his heart and squeezes painfully, causing his pulse to stutter and jump. His mouth is suddenly very dry, and he takes a hurried sip of coffee, trying to ignore the terrible sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach.

 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he murmurs. His hands are trembling, and he hurries to set his mug down so as not to drop it.

 

Kirito continues assessing him with that calculating sidelong gaze.

 

“Whatever,” he says with a shrug. “Suit yourself. I’m just being considerate, is all. You’re going to have to bullshit your way through that entire wedding. Just thought you might like to get something off your chest beforehand. Not that I’m a particularly great listener, mind you. Might tune you out halfway through. But hey. Who the hell are you gonna rant to if not me?”

 

Yuuya merely looks at him, unsure if this is really happening. _At least no one knew._ That’s what he’s told himself countless times. At least no one knew, and so there would be no one to say “don’t worry, there are plenty of fish in the sea,” no one to give him pitying looks from across the reception hall, no one trying to play matchmaker afterwards, setting him up on dates because “you’re still so young, you should move on, you should forget.”

 

But now Kazama Kirito is sitting in his apartment, in front of his computer, and telling him that he knows. That he’s known all along. And Yuuya wonders how he let this happen. Where did he go wrong? He’d tried so hard to hide his feelings. He’d perfected the art of the smile that gives away nothing, the shoulder touch that is friendly without being overly so, the casual deflection of conversation whenever talk turned towards love. But even that, it seems, was not enough.

 

“I… I don’t…” Yuuya stares down at his hands, unable to look at Kirito. His throat is tight, his tongue like lead in his mouth.

 

“It hurts,” is what he says finally, and Kirito makes a faint sound that might be agreement or exasperation or some combination of the two. He’s still typing commands into the computer, but Yuuya knows he’s listening all the same.

 

“I don’t know how I’m supposed to do it,” he says softly. “To give a speech saying how happy I am for them. Because I’m not. I’m not that good of a person. I’m bitter and jealous and awful and I just – ” He breaks off, voice wavering. “But… the worst part is… I honestly didn’t expect it. I didn’t see it coming. Even when they got engaged I still believed, you know? I always thought that in the end the two of us would be together. I always thought he would realize it sooner or later, that we were – ”

 

“Hold up,” Kirito says, cutting him off. He turns to fix Yuuya with a questioning stare. “Sorry to interrupt, but I gotta ask before you go any further: you’re not looking for sympathy, are you? ‘Cause… sorry to say, but I have none to give.”

 

Yuuya blinks. “N-no,” he says. “That’s not…”

 

He pauses, then, words caught in his throat. He thinks back on all the times he’s stood next to Jin, desperately wanting to reach for his hand, to twine their fingers together and never let go. All the times Jin has smiled at him in that soft, affectionate way, and all the times he’s hoped to find a different meaning written there. All the times he’s watched them together and felt that strange, suffocating ache in his chest, like there is a weight pressing down, threatening to break him into pieces.

 

“Sorry,” he says, and laughs weakly. “I might be.”

 

Kirito raises an eyebrow.

 

“I know it’s not fair to you,” Yuuya continues. “I know I’m acting like a spoiled brat. I should be grateful that he’s still here, shouldn’t I? That I can still see him, and talk to him. He may not be mine but at least he’s not gone forever, right? But I just… I can’t help it, I – ” He takes a shaky breath, drawing his knees up to his chest and wrapping his arms around them, curling in upon himself like a child might. “… Back when I was in the… the lab, I used to have nightmares a lot. Nightmares about my parents. Nightmares about what Innovator had done to me – what they were _going_ to do to me tomorrow. But every once in a while… I would have a good dream instead.

 

“Whenever I had a good dream, the boy from the hospital was always in them. I think I may have… I don’t know, _imprinted_ on him or something. He was the last positive thing I remember before Innovator took me away, so I guess it was inevitable, really. I didn’t know his name back then, but it didn’t matter. Sometimes in my dreams we would be in school together, or playing games together, just like normal kids. Like I wished I could be. Sometimes we’d be on some fantasy adventure.” Yuuya smiles faintly at the memory. “But we were always friends. He was always laughing with me. And then I’d wake up, and I’d find myself back in the laboratory, and I’d cry because it wasn’t real. I was still there… and I was still alone. But, you know… those dreams made me so happy, too. Because I liked to imagine that someday I’d get away – that I’d escape, and I’d go out into the world and find that boy from the hospital, and we’d be together just like in my dreams. That’s the way a child’s mind works, I guess. Everything is so simple and easy.”

 

(Kirito’s fingers are hovering over the keys. He hasn’t typed anything in a long while.)

 

“… I wasn’t myself when I first saw Jin at Artemis,” Yuuya says quietly. “But he remembered me. He remembered the boy from the hospital. He helped me, he brought me back, and it was like… fate, almost. Us meeting again, just like I’d imagined. It was like fate.” He swallows hard. His eyes are prickling, and he swipes at them with the back of his hand. “It all seemed so perfect. I’d found him again and we would be just like the ‘us’ from my dreams, I thought. And we were. We were, until I just had to go and want more and god, I’m so stupid. He was the only thing I had for all those years so it was bound to happen, wasn’t it? It was bound to happen…”

 

He’s crying. His vision is blurring around the edges from the tears. He’s supposed to be past this. He’s supposed to have accepted reality. But he’s never told anyone the whole truth from start to finish, always kept his feelings bottled up tight, and now, hearing his own words spoken aloud, it’s like an old wound has been torn open again. He tries to choke back a sob but it’s no use, and he hates himself for sounding so pathetic, so weak.

 

And then, suddenly, there is a warm weight resting on the nape of his neck. Yuuya glances up, startled. Kirito isn’t looking at him – eyes still fixed pointedly on the monitor – but his hand is strangely comforting against Yuuya’s skin, his palm rough but not overly so, his thumb moving in calming circles. They stay like this for a time, neither of them speaking a word, until finally Yuuya says:

 

“Do you still miss her?”

 

He can’t see much of Kirito’s face, but he can see the way his shoulders seem to slump a little lower, the way his mouth curves ever-so-slightly downward. (Like a wilted flower.)

 

“Every fucking day,” Kirito says. He sounds so very tired.

 

It’s not the same, Yuuya knows. Kirito’s girlfriend loved him back. Kirito’s girlfriend wasn’t some silly fantasy. If she had lived they would’ve been together – it probably would’ve been their wedding day long before Jin’s. But it feels the same, in this moment. Kirito claimed he had no sympathy, but his hand on Yuuya’s shoulder tells a vastly different story.

 

Silence falls over the room again, and soon enough Kirito is back to typing, sipping occasionally on his coffee, which must be cold by now, or at least room temperature. _Is he resigned to it?_ Yuuya wonders. (Or does he merely ignore it, fooling himself into thinking it’s still warm?)

 

.

 

.

 

He tries to give Kirito payment for his services, but finds his yen being pushed back at him.

 

“Don’t need it,” Kirito says. “Doing favors for people isn’t the same as a job, Haibara. That’s why it’s called a favor. Plus… it’d be demeaning if I took money for something that simple. I have the ability to hack some of the strongest security networks in the world, you know. Backing up your porn collection is hardly worth paying me for.”

 

“I told you it’s not porn,” Yuuya laughs. “I just feel bad, is all. You wasted half your afternoon doing something so tedious. Not to mention…” He trails off and clears his throat awkwardly.

 

“Forget about it,” Kirito says gruffly. He seems strangely uncomfortable as well, refusing to meet Yuuya’s eyes. He keeps crossing and un-crossing his arms like he’s not sure what to do with them. “Just… I’ll pick you up at two, alright?”

 

“…What?”

 

“For the wedding. I’ll pick you up at two. You don’t have a date. I don’t have a date. Seems like the easiest solution for both of our problems.”

 

Yuuya stares at him.

 

“And don’t bother writing a speech. Anything you write is clearly going to be a fucking catastrophe. I’ll write it for you. E-mail it to you a couple days before. All you gotta do is read it. I’ll add in a couple personal touches to make it sound genuine, so don’t worry about it.”

 

Questions tumble over one another in Yuuya’s mind. _Why would you do all that for me?_ he wonders. _Is it pity? Is it the sympathy you claimed to have none of? Or is it something else?_

 

So many things he could say, but in the end all he manages is a choked “thank you.”

 

Kirito nods tersely, trying and failing to hide a faint smile.

 

(It’s enough.)


End file.
